


A Journey Without Destination

by MakeSomethingUp



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: A whole lotta internal conflict, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Study, Gen, General exploration of confusion over sex/gender/orientation, Internalized Gender Issues, Trans Character, trans!aaron burr, very mild swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 22:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5644660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MakeSomethingUp/pseuds/MakeSomethingUp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by a Hamiltonprompts tumblr post.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>Aaron Burr spends so much energy keeping things hidden. Keeping things safe; away from public opinion. Mainly himself.</em><br/><em>He has no idea what it is he's meant to be doing, or whether he has waited too long or not long enough to do it, but he understands somewhere deep down that transitioning was the right decision to make.</em></p><p> </p><p>This is a personal experience-informed character study alternatively titled:<br/>Aaron Burr and the Oppressive and Continuous Confusion Surrounding the Transition Process</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Journey Without Destination

**Author's Note:**

> If you're having your own issues with all the gender/sex/presentation bullshittery, I'll warn you now that this is basically the inside of Burr's head, and therefore has a bunch of decided-upon opinions one way or another regarding trans stuff.  
> If you're having issues but that's exactly why you're reading this: hope I helped ease the pressure of making decisions a little :)  
> If you're currently free of issues and just out for a good chunk of trans!Aaron: hope this is interesting and informative :)

Aaron Burr.  
The name wasn’t exactly graceful, but the double-double letters were a nice little feature.  
Aaron. It started strong. Finished abruptly. Still somehow comfortable on the tongue.  
That was nice, too. Sort of spoke to character good and early in the conversation. Although Aaron Burr would be picking and choosing conversations very carefully for the next... Well, however long it took.

It had taken three full months for friends and family to decidedly switch to saying “Aaron.” But it had taken Aaron three full years to actually commit to “Aaron.” And it had taken so much longer to commit to the person that “Aaron” would represent.

There is a feeling that almost everyone can attest to, Aaron ventures, when you are forced for the first time to decide for yourself which path to take a tentative step upon, toward your future. That moment when you stop and look around at your teachers and guardians and wonder what on Earth gave them the impression that a preteen might be able to pick a trajectory and run with it. That feeling had haunted Aaron since what now seemed like the very beginning. Picking a career path was hard enough (and he had already gotten that one wrong the first time), but picking a gender? Picking a presentation, picking pronouns, picking “Aaron” and then running with that...  
Aaron had so far lived 19 years as “she,” two and a half years as “he,” with probably a good 18 months of “they” dotted cautiously in and around the in betweens. There was definitely a straight month at the end of last year where “Aaron” seemed to sit most comfortably when paired with gender neutral pronouns. This was the same month that the all-over buzz cut had paired most comfortably with painted nails and a meticulously close shave. And perhaps it was also the same month that Aaron had been applying a little eyeliner before heading out to the clubs.

Deciding things was so hard.  
This was all so hard.  
It seemed- just lately- that Aaron was once again decidedly “he,” and a part of him just couldn’t shake the cold, heavy guilt that came from changing his mind over things that he was so sure he was meant to be so sure of. He was meant to have known all along. He was meant to have strived to change himself in to the person he knew he needed to be. He was meant to have followed the process, the narrative, in an orderly fashion. Cut hair. Take meds. Change name. Get surgery. Breathe an overwhelming sigh of relief on the other side, realising that he had finally made it to the end of his journey.  
The world had told Aaron what path he was supposed to take, and then encouraged him to run. He was stumbling and falling and getting lost at every turn. Could he go back now? Could he choose a different direction? Could he just... stop here and stand. Be still. Be a fixed point on this journey of his. Build a house there. Be content there. Live his life there.

Aaron thought about these things all the time. Speculations on his murky future were better, at least, than panicked breakdowns over his past. Had he made the wrong choice? Should he have waited longer? Will he ever know for sure that this was what he wanted? None of these questions could be answered, of course, but Aaron had made a habit of torturing himself with them all the same. Perhaps it was in the hopes of learning some kind of lesson from it all. Perhaps he was just as self-destructive as his gender therapist had once suggested. That seemed so long ago now; so far away.

“You need to understand that this won’t be short and it won’t be easy.” She had told him.  
“I am well acquainted with long and hard.” Had been Aaron’s response.

These days, Aaron Burr was read exclusively as male, albeit as a soft and effeminate male. He rather enjoyed this. Aaron had never had any problem with femininity, just the angle at which he had been forced to approach it. These days, if some stranger wanted to call him pretty, that was fine. If he started wearing his diamond stud earrings again because he felt the need to sparkle a little, that was fine too. And as much as Aaron contemplated what his path even was and whether he was walking down it in the right direction, he could never regret doing what had been done.

He could never regret it, but that didn’t mean anyone had to know about it. Aaron worked hard to keep every part of himself guarded. Pre-transition, people used to call him shy. Post-transition he was labeled “mysterious.” Apparently there was something much sexier about a man who didn’t speak than a girl who didn’t. If Aaron hadn’t been desperately micromanaging every interaction in his successfully-stealth lifestyle, he may have had words with someone over the implications there. In the interest of keeping his past as murky as possible, he had long ago resolved himself to instead throwing up in his mouth a little at times like these. He would never stop being a feminist. But he would also never endeavour to have a social-political opinion again. Too risky. Too open. Too much public sympathy for the ‘fairer sex’ and someone would assume he must be somehow in cahoots with them. This thought also brought bile to Aaron’s tongue. Fucking assholes.

The only downside Aaron had found to his perceived mysteriousness was the reliability with which it attracted interested parties. He didn’t know if there was enough time in the whole of his life for him to sit down and figure out how to go about intimacy while keeping his post-transition stealth identity safe. And safe is what he wanted to keep it.  
When Aaron thought about it; he was in his twenties now and had already successfully avoided sexual intimacy up until this point. Maybe he had done some panicked making out in gay clubs while he was floating in androgyny. And there was an enthusiastic (but definitely not reciprocal) blow job that one time at a New Year’s party. But he had lived without it all easily enough so far. So perhaps that was how the rest of his life would follow on. Honestly, Aaron supposed that if that were the case he might actually be able to sustain the energy required to be just this tense and wary and low key fucking terrified all the time. That was a good enough trade-off.

Every once in a while he spared a thought for his former therapist. Aaron hadn’t enjoyed talking to her. Or, really, he had found it so difficult to talk to her that there was no way it could have been enjoyable. Or particularly cathartic. And, yes, he was tense all the time and he was overly-wary and he was a little bit terrified. But that didn’t mean he wanted someone to talk to. The thought was rare and fleeting and made the bottom drop out of his stomach, but occasionally Aaron would lie in the dark and consider that what he actually wanted was just... Someone to look at him. To look deep into his eyes, unflinchingly, and to understand.

Long and hard. His journey had been long and hard already, and his future promised more of the same. But that was fine. Aaron would keep walking, knowing that the only way he could have gotten this far down the road was because he was meant to. If Aaron Burr had nothing more to his name than a stack of legal paperwork, a standing subscription for Sustanon and a fully tangible (if somewhat fickle) sense of self, then so be it. The Universe clearly had a plan for him. The only thing he truly had to commit to was waiting to see what that might be.


End file.
